I absolutely adore The Sims Medieval! I love the rustic traditional style of the objects, and while I play a mostly realistic game in the current age, I like my Sims’ worlds to have a historical and cultural influence. So I love items that reflect the past and these Medieval sculptures will be perfect for my game!

Here are four more TS3 conversions. I’m getting a little more confident with my skills now, but if you have any tips or tricks I’d be happy to hear them! ^__^

There are four statues: A mermaid; a unicorn; the thinking man from Uni life; and finally one of my favourites – the Literati statue! All can be found under ‘sculptures’ and in the museum tab, and the Literati statue can also be found under the library tab. All have the original description text and prices from TS3.

More statue conversions! Did I mention I love statues? Anyhoo, I really wanted the Big Dude statue because I always use it in my parks. Then I spotted several other favourites and couldn’t resist converting these 3 creepy statues to compliment the new Spooky Stuff pack! I love using these to make beautiful haunted graveyards!

Again, these are high poly so use sparingly. Have fun and don’t fear the reaper!

One thing I can’t get enough of for The Sims are nice statues. I love to use them in civic and community builds like parks, town halls, libraries and museums. When building my town hall, I was frustrated by the lack of classical statues and decided to use my newly discovered skills to convert a few of my favourites from TS3. There are five statues: the lion and the 4 Paris statues from World Adventures. They come in 3 options: stone; marble; and bronze. And they have the original names, descriptions and prices from TS3. Unfortunately, they do have quite a high poly count. They can be resized, like in the image above where I made the lion bigger to fit the space by the steps. They can be found under ‘sculptures’.

EDIT! I updated the statues with a non-shiny version which I prefer (see last image below). However, I left the shiny version up in case anyone prefers them. But only choose ONE file as they override each other.

EDIT! Brazen Lotus has created mirrored [Flipped] versions of the statues. Great if you want one on either side of a doorway, for example. Link below.

I was converting a few décor items that I wanted to use in my Town Hall build and while I was converting the podium I randomly decided to see what would happen if I gave it the functionality of the TS4 microphone, to my surprise it worked! :-O

Then I got giddy and made another podium with the functionality of the mirror. You can use both versions in your game and choose whichever one suits your needs the most. They’re really useful for all sorts of things from political speeches, to celebrity award shows, comedy clubs and school rallies! They have all the functionality of the microphone or mirror such as ‘tell jokes’, ‘perform routine’, ‘practice speech’ and ‘psych self up’. So they are great for storytelling purposes as well as being pretty handy objects.

One small issue with the mirror version is that sims can sometimes stand a bit too far away. This is just because the radius sims can stand within to use the mirror is pretty large, and I don’t know how to change this. However it’s easily fixed by repositioning the podium, or placing an object or wall behind to force sims to stand closer. You can see in the images below that by placing the small table behind the podium, the sim stood closer. I also had to sink the podium into the floor a little. There is a small amount of clipping when sims gesture, but hey, this is the sims 4, what’s a bit of clipping between routing friends? XD

The zip contains both versions, you can use either or both at the same time. You can find them under ‘activities’ in the buy catalogue. Have fun and happy simming! ^__^

So, a lot of people have been asking me how to do a simple recolour of a Sims 4 create-a-sim item. Here I’ll show you how to change the colour of a dress, but this technique can be easily adapted to most CAS items and objects too!

You will need:

* The latest version of Sims4Studio (registration required but totally worth it). As an alternative you can use TSR Workshop or S4pe but this tutorial uses S4S.

* A way of editing .dss images. I use a free program called GIMP and this is what I’ll show in the tutorial, but you could also use Photoshop or Paint.net.

* A computer. You could also use your imagination, it’s up to you. XD

Ok, once you have Sims4Studio downloaded and installed you can go ahead and launch it. If you only want to add one or two new colours to an outfit you could choose ‘Add CAS part swatch’ and this just adds the new options to the existing thumbnail in create-a-sim. However, I recommend using ‘Create CAS standalone’ because it makes it easier to add more content, especially if you are also using other creator’s custom content alongside your own.

From the screen below you can search for the item you wish to recolour. There are options at the top to help you filter the content.

STEP 2: Find the item you want to recolour and choose ‘Next’.

Step 3: Save the project to the desktop so you can find it easily. This is the actual .package file you will drop into your mods folder. You need to give it a unique name, especially if you want to share it! A good format to use is:

[your name]_TS4_[description of item]

You could also put the age and gender in there like ‘FA'(female adult) or ‘MT’ (male teen).

(Note: Don’t use my name! Use your name! 😛 )

You should now be able to see a layout like the image below. You can use your mouse to zoom in/out, move, and rotate the item in the viewing window.

Step 4: Look for the area that has the title ‘Texture’, you should see a flat image of the clothing and next to it should be a ‘export’ button. Export the image to your desktop and save it under an appropriate name.

Step 5: Minimize Sims4Studio. Now open your image editing software. Go to ‘file’ –> ‘open’ and then find your exported image. If using GIMP a box will pop up, this is what mine looks like (I uncheck ‘load mipmaps’).

Step 6: Now your image should be ready to edit! Here we will do a simple recolour. If using GIMP, navigate to the ‘Colors’ tab at the top, and click the ‘Hue-Saturation…’ option.

Step 7: This is the fun part! You should have a window like the image below. Move the ‘hue’ slider till you find a colour you like. You can also play with the ‘lightness’ and ‘saturation’ sliders to brighten/darken or weaken/strengthen the colour. The ‘Brightness-Contrast’ options under the ‘Colors’ tab (see step 6) is also useful.

Step 8: Once you are happy with the colour of your item, you can export it! (You could also ‘overwrite’ the original image, but since I like to add lots of recolours it is better to save each new image individually.) Go to the ‘File’ tab and select ‘export’. Save the image to the desktop as a .dss file.

Step 9: You will get a pop-up like the one below. You MUST choose ‘BC3/DXT5’ for compression and ‘Generate Mipmaps’ for mipmaps.

You can now close GIMP.

Maximize Sims4Studio. You should still have your project window open (if not, you can easily use ‘My Projects’ from the main menu screen and find the .package you saved earlier in step 3).

Step 10: Under texture you can now ‘import’ your new edited image. You should be able to see it on the sim.

Step 11: You’re nearly there! In the window titled ‘Swatch Thumbnail Colors’ right-click the coloured square to get a dropper tool, then click on the 3D image to pick an appropriate colour.

Step 12: Save the project (bottom right of screen) and you’re done! Congratulations! You made a basic recolour! \o/

You can now close Sims4Studio. Move your .package file from the desktop and drop it into the Sims 4 mods folder like you would with any other item of custom content. When you load the game you should be able to find your new item as a standalone recolour!

A few extra tips!

* If you made extra recolours just reopen your .package file using the ‘My Projects’ button on the main screen of Sims4Studio. You can then ‘add swatch’ to import more colours!

* Once you have loaded the item in-game once, it will generate a catalog thumbnail. You can reopen your project and export the thumbnail to design your own custom version to make it easier to recognise in create-a-sim!

* You can open the ‘categories’ tab in Sims4Studio to edit search tabs like colour, to make finding your outfit in create-a-sim even easier!

More tutorials!

If you need more tutorials I highly recommend checking out the Online Manual at Sims4Studio.

My Sims’ world, Crumpleton, is an old English village which is kind of stuck in the past. I wanted some vintage posters for Meadow’s grocery shop that reflected that, as though they still used the same old advertisements they’d used 50-100 years ago. Or that the elderly customers still wanted to buy the same brands they had used all their life! You can’t beat a bar of Cadbury’s chocolate amirite? ^__^

Anyway, I thought I’d share them. There are 12 options and you can find them for $10 under ‘paintings’.

My sims needed somewhere to buy their groceries and my current grocery shop was a little… blah! So I switched to one of my favourite pre-mades who I use to test all my gardening/food related mods, Meadow Carpenter Rhodes! I don’t quite know how Meadow became my gardening guinea pig, but I’ve grown quite attached to her. I like that she’s a bit quirky: she’s insane and loves plants more than people (a bit like Daric) but she’s a bit bohemian and loves to play the guitar and paint. I also like that she’s naturally quite muscular, I imagine this is because she works hard on the land. Unfortunately, in Crumpleton, her mental illness seems to be more apparent than usual. Maybe this is because I’m less controlling than when I’m directing her to test things and, given more freedom, her quirky behaviour is more apparent. I’ll admit, she’s scaring me a bit! Anyway, it was late when I switched to her so she went to bed. In the morning she had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (I really need to sort out the meal availabilities on my food mods… they have weird options for breakfast) and then she got to work in the garden a bit.

Meadow wanted to tend to her garden but it was raining and she was determined to wear her bikini so I let her pick something else to do, she chose to play the guitar while the rain subsided. Then she happily tended the wet garden in her bikini. *sigh*

Then it was time to head to the grocery shop! Fortunately, Meadow chose to wear her outerwear to ride there, I really like this outfit on her, it suits her. I love looking around the world as my sims ride around town, Meadow rode past The Globe Theatre, and then spotted another sim acting a bit crazy! At least she isn’t the only one!

(By the way… I know my screenshots are really dark and I thought I should explain why. I purposefully made some of my lighting files very dark outside because in real life on country roads in the UK it IS very dark! And I like the contrast between the dark, gloomy exterior and the bright, inviting interiors! It isn’t always like this… sometimes the world can be a lot brighter and have nice sunsets and things. But I think the rainy/cloudy weather has made it extra dark lately.)

Meadow arrived at the grocery. It’s part of a chain of shops on one lot that is kind of like the ‘high street’ or main shopping area of the town. It is in the centre of town, next to the park and near the town hall, church and main university building. I originally had the grocery on a smaller shop next door, but I realised I’d need a lot more room and converted the empty shop on the corner instead.

I sent Meadow to the supplier (the grocery rabbithole rug) and had her buy 3 of everything to get the store set-up! In the future she will only be able to buy items that can’t be grown or produced during gameplay, like the bread, peanut butter, and flour from the overhaul mod. All other items will have to be made by my produce sims, like fruit, veg, honey, eggs, milk, etc. Those sims will then leave their produce in the storage boxes at outside the back of the store, and will take their payment of the value of the goods from Meadow’s ‘piggy bank’ which uses the code from Ani’s tax collector mod. I’ve set up the store so that sims can only ‘shop while active’ so that sims won’t autonomously buy all the produce if they don’t need it, and so that I can send my sims to get the things they need while I’m playing them. Meadow will only restock items if they are available in the cash register’s inventory.

I also converted Dot’s mesh shelves to use Ani’s savvier code but I don’t want to upload these as they clone Dot’s meshes. I’ll hopefully get time to write a tutorial on how to change the code on objects yourself.